A Young Woman's Heart

Meanwhile, Zhuang Lianlian was diligently and earnestly trying to ring the rings, carefully considering each one before throwing it away. She hadn't managed to ring anything on the first ten attempts.

But perhaps Lady Luck was on her side, because the next five all came true.

Although I got two duplicate ceramic dogs, there are three of us here, so we can share them and it won't be a problem.

"Wow, that's amazing..." Mo Xueyao exclaimed. "I had such bad luck today."

"Hehehe..." Zhuang Lianlian hugged the five prizes the boss handed her, grinning happily.

"It seems Lady Luck is on Zhuang Lianlian's side," Li Wanyan joked.

Zhuang Lianlian remained noncommittal: "Is Lady Luck on my side...?"

……

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Transcript

After several days of rain and snow, a sunny day finally arrived.

A golden sun hung high in the sky, as if it were making up for all the sunshine that had been owed to people in one go.

The sky was a clear, cloudless blue, and the snow was melting rapidly. Mo Xueyao, having finished breakfast, sat lazily at the entrance of the fruit shop, enjoying the caress of the sun.

She felt she could do nothing at all, just sit there all day until the sun went down.

"Xiaoyao, I forgot to tell you, your teacher called last night to tell you that you can go to school today to pick up your report cards." The father picked up a rotten apple, cut off the rotten part, and then put it in his mouth and crunched away. "It just so happens that the weather is so nice today..."

"Hmm, going for a walk sounds nice. Let's skip the bike and walk, it's not far anyway." Mo Xueyao stood up, her arms and legs taut. "Phew—Wanyan, shall we go?"

"Okay." Li Wanyan, who was resting with her eyes closed, nodded, picked up the black-rimmed glasses from the cardboard box next to her, and put them on.

Perhaps students with good academic performance all have obsessive-compulsive tendencies to some extent.

Mo Xueyao didn't know what Li Wanyan was thinking, but she liked to do the things she least wanted to do first.

Even for her, doing winter vacation homework wasn't exactly a happy thing, so in the past few days, she and Li Wanyan finished all their winter vacation homework.

Don't be fooled by the short phrase "winter break homework," there's quite a lot of it.

Each subject has about ten test papers, and subjects like English and Chinese also have copying assignments, in addition to winter vacation homework.

The two of them completed one subject per day, which can be described as high-intensity work.

There was no need to rush, but my father said that my godfather had already bought plane tickets for them, and they would be flying to Beijing in a few days.

Once the trip begins, there won't be as much time to do homework.

Moreover, I really wasn't in the mood to do my homework while traveling.

So the two of them finished their winter break homework with extremely high efficiency.

Of course, it wasn't the kind of scribbling that was done carelessly. Every assignment was completed diligently, and after finishing, the two of them would proofread each other's work to ensure a certain level of accuracy—even if the teacher might not even check for mistakes.

To be honest, the amount of homework during the winter break at Yukong High School wasn't particularly much.

Mo Xueyao heard her father talk about a friend's child who was attending a top high school. The child had thirty test papers for each subject, plus winter vacation homework and various copying assignments.

That means I have to do at least four practice tests and other assignments every day to finish before the end of winter break.

This isn't a holiday, it's like we have to take exams every day!

I have a feeling that this might be going too far.

Bathed in the warm sunlight, Mo Xueyao thought to herself.

"Wanyan," Mo Xueyao looked at Li Wanyan beside her and suddenly asked curiously, "If your glasses fell down, what would you do to catch them?"

"Huh?" Li Wanyan didn't react for a moment.

"Well...don't different people have different ways of adjusting their glasses?" Mo Xueyao made a gesture of pushing up her glasses with her index finger. "Some people do it like this, and others pinch the frame. What about you?"

"Me?" Li Wanyan thought for a moment. "If you ask me this suddenly, I really can't think of anything."

"Shall we try it now?"

So Li Wanyan adjusted her glasses, but something still felt off.

Is that so?

"Hmm, I don't quite remember how you usually push up your glasses either," Mo Xueyao said, scratching her head.

"I feel a little awkward."

"Is it really cool to push up your glasses with your middle finger?" Mo Xueyao demonstrated. "Wearing glasses makes you look like an intellectual. I always wanted to wear glasses when I was a kid."

“You’ll know how inconvenient it is once you actually use it.” Li Wanyan took off her glasses and handed them to Mo Xueyao. “Would you like to try them on, Yaoyao?”

“Okay.” Mo Xueyao happily put the glasses on her face.

Then I felt dizzy, and the scenery in front of me became blurry, even feeling distorted.

"how?"

"Ugh—headache! And it feels really weird having something on my nose." Mo Xueyao quickly took off her glasses. "It's definitely better not to wear glasses."

“Of course. Wearing glasses is troublesome in both winter and summer. In summer, you sweat, and in winter, they fog up. On rainy days, they get wet, and in dusty places, they get dirty easily.” Li Wanyan took back her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “They also leave white marks on my nose.”

"Hmm...but I feel like Wanyan looks a little different with and without glasses, in terms of her demeanor." Mo Xueyao stroked her chin. "Hmm—she always seems a bit fierce when she's not wearing glasses?"

"That's because I can't see clearly, so I have to squint." Li Wanyan smiled helplessly and put her glasses back on.

What is Wanyan's glasses prescription?

"400 degrees."

Is this considered a very high prescription?

"It's neither high nor low." Li Wanyan chuckled slightly, a hint of self-deprecation in her voice. "These glasses are probably the most valuable thing I own."

"I've heard that getting glasses is really expensive."

"It cost seven or eight hundred yuan because I couldn't see the words on the blackboard clearly when I was in the third year of junior high school—I was sitting in the first row at the time."

"I see..." Thinking of Li Wanyan's family situation, Mo Xueyao knew how much hard work and sweat must have gone into getting such a pair of glasses.

Moreover, there might be a father, Li Wanyan, who holds the view that girls' education is useless, obstructing her from the sidelines.

“This was a birthday gift from my mom.” Li Wanyan unconsciously pushed up her glasses. “I wonder if my prescription has gotten worse now.”

"It's okay, we can just add more if it gets too dark," Mo Xueyao said casually. "Let Dad pay for it."

"Dad... Come to think of it, now that I call him godfather, shouldn't I call you sister?" Li Wanyan said half-jokingly.

The longer she stayed at Mo Xueyao's house, the more often she smiled.

Nobody really likes someone who always has a long face.

That was just a way of protecting my fragile heart.

True strength is always accompanied by a smile.

"what--"

"what happened?"

"It's nothing. I just suddenly thought of the saying 'true strong people always smile,' and then I suddenly remembered that Mo Xiaoxiao always seems to be smiling?"

"It seems so."

"She must have a really strong heart... She had no parents and relied on her younger sister for survival."

“Perhaps, without her sister, she wouldn’t be able to hold on by herself.” Li Wanyan’s smile faded, and she sighed softly. “Her sister is her only support, her motivation to live. It is also because of the responsibility she has for her sister that she has been able to carry so much and get to where she is today.”

"It feels so tiring, everyone is so tired." Mo Xueyao thought of Zhuang Lianlian again.

"It's more accurate to say that families like Xiaoyao's, with their happy and fulfilling lives, are the minority," Li Wanyan said, her tone tinged with a hint of envy.

"Really? There must be many normal families like that."

"Being 'normal' is not an easy thing."

"Uh..." Mo Xueyao remained noncommittal. Although her family was relatively normal, her life was anything but!

The two chatted for a while and soon entered the school.

Students were coming and going sparsely at the school gate.

Although the notice said to pick up the report cards today, it didn't specify what time to pick them up, so the students who came to pick them up were scattered.

"It seems like there's no one in the classroom." Mo Xueyao peered into the classroom through the window.

"He should be in the office," Li Wanyan said, walking confidently toward the homeroom teacher's office.

The homeroom teacher's office was packed with students. Many homeroom teachers for the first year of high school were in this office, so students from all classes were there.

There were also seven or eight students in front of the homeroom teacher's desk.

For Mo Xueyao, the only person she was truly familiar with was Ye Banxia.

"Oh, it's Wanyan and Xiaoyao." Ye Wen looked up at the two of them and immediately took out two separate envelopes from the side. "Here you go, yours is ready. Your final grades were great this semester, keep it up next semester!"

"Hmm." Although she was confident that she wouldn't fail the test, Mo Xueyao still breathed a slight sigh of relief after hearing what the teacher said. She couldn't wait to open the envelope and take out her report card to look at it.

The total score for science is 180, for mathematics it is 150, and for English and Chinese it is 120.

Mo Xueyao scored 172 in science, 143 in math, 117 in Chinese, and 118 in English this time. I guess she got two of the options wrong.

Overall, she is indeed better at humanities than sciences.

The report card also showed her ranking in the entire grade, and she was still ranked ninth this time, with no change.

It seems everyone else is working very hard too.

Li Wanyan ranked second in the entire grade this time.

"Huh, who's in first place?" Mo Xueyao asked curiously.

“It’s Mr. Xue,” Ye Wen replied proudly. “The first and second place in the entire grade are both from our class this time.”

"Phew... I guess I don't really feel anything about being ninth in the whole grade." Mo Xueyao said dejectedly.

"Well, you're still third in our class, that's not bad at all."